Citizens have a right to record police.

Citizens are sometimes arrested under eavesdropping laws that were designed to prevent the surreptitious recording of a conversation. But does a police officer have a reasonable expectation of privacy while he's doing his job? And how surreptitious can it be when the camera is in full view?

The cases involving videos of officers generally don't involve brutality or overt misconduct. More typically, citizens are documenting their own or friends' exchanges with police; they want something on the record.
Arresting citizens and confiscating videos can mean the violation of three different constitutional guarantees. Gathering information about public employees is protected by the First Amendment, while confiscating recordings can violate the search and seizure clause of the Fourth and the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment. That's quite a trifecta.
That's why it was so heartening to see the U.S. Department of Justice step up in federal court last month in the Sharp case, clearly signaling its opposition to the practice of arresting citizens with video cameras.
"The right to record police officers while performing duties in a public place, as well as the right to be protected from the warrantless seizure and destruction of those recordings, are not only required by the Constitution," the department wrote to the U.S. District Court in Maryland. "They are consistent with our fundamental notions of liberty, promote the accountability of our government officers, and instill public confidence in the police officers who serve us daily."
Just as police officers use technology to watch citizens, including patrol car cameras, traffic light cameras and radar to track speeding, the public has a right to monitor the work of officers on the public payroll.
Like it or not, everything we do in public can be recorded, posted and distributed around the globe in seconds, and no ordinance, state law or department policy is going to change that. The world is watching.http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-02-07/police-video-tape-crime/53001432/1?loc=interstitialskip


Chicago's audio recording law comes under fire.
Springfield, Ill. — Tiawanda Moore didn't think she was doing anything wrong when she took out her smartphone and started recording a conversation with two Chicago police officers she says were trying to stop her from filing a sexual harassment complaint against one of their colleagues two years ago.

Moore was promptly arrested and charged with violating a strict Illinois eavesdropping law that bars audio recordings unless all involved parties agree to it. Moore, then 20, spent more than two weeks in jail and faced up to 15 years in prison.

In Illinois, documenting life in the era of smartphones and YouTube can result in felony charges. The little-known law could draw more attention come May, when thousands of protesters and journalists are set to descend on Chicago for the NATO and G8 summits and someone unknowingly may try to record a clash with police.
Some state legislators say it's time to rewrite the law, which faces state and federal challenges. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has asked the state Supreme Court to address whether it is constitutional.

Lawmakers want to include an exception that allows people to record police as they are doing their jobs."I don't believe there is an expectation of privacy for public officials on public property doing public duties," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook.

Most states allow anyone taking part in a conversation to audio record it, a policy known as one-party consent. A dozen states require both sides of a conversation to agree. Illinois has an unusual version of the second type, requiring all parties in a conversation to consent. The law, enacted in 1961, only applies to recording conversations, so it is legal to record an event with the sound turned off or an event in the distance in which voices cannot be heard.

The law also includes a narrow exception for radio and television recordings made in public where conversations may be incidentally heard over the main broadcast. But that wouldn't preclude police from arresting a citizen who records audio from an event on a cellphone, as they may not be protected under traditional interpretations of freedom of the press.http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57372388/audio-recording-law-under-scrutiny-in-illinois/